Rep. John Murtha (Colonel, USMC, ret.) was on Beat the Press this morning. He beat back everything Timmeh threw at him and on top of that Murtha got his own message out. Dignity and Passion. Common sense and straight talk. 'Twas a beautiful thing.

I was going to post a bunch of quotes but there are too many good ones. Read the full transcript here. Watch it in full InternetScope color at Ecrocs et Menteurs.

Timmeh played the clip of that witch Jean Schmidt accusing him of being a coward. But Murtha didn't take the bait. " I try not to take this stuff personal."

.. this is not a war of words, this is a real war where people are getting killed. Fifteen thousand people have been wounded, and half of them are desperately wounded, blinded, without their arms.

He went on to describe his visits to Walter Reed.

Murtha's message was simple and clear: we need to GTFO of Iraq ASAP. The occupation isn't working, we're considered enemies by the Iraqi people, the US leadership is incompetent and "illusionary".

Then there were the quotes from Pelosi and Kerry disagreeing with his policy of quick withdrawal. Sad, sad, sad. Guess it's not hard to tell who is counting on Military Industrial Complex money for their next campaign and who isn't.

Murtha took the high road again and said something along the lines of "this isn't about me, it's about the American people who are concerned and want us politicians to resolve this difficult problem." He said his is a serious proposal and was meant to begin a public dialogue.

Here's to a successful mission.

Bonus quote. This is really going to piss Bush Junior off:

Republican members of Congress can't say because I'm a Democrat--I led the fight to go to war in '91 with President Bush I. He knew what he was doing. But $60 billion was paid by our allies and we had a coalition, a real coalition of forces and he had an exit strategy and he didn't go into Iraq.